The following condensed version of The Last Circle was provided in October 1996
to a secret Investigative Committee comprised of Congress people, lawyers and
former POW's at their request. I originally contacted Congresswoman Maxine
Waters in Washington D.C. and offered information
relative to CIA drug trafficking, but was told the information was too
complex and would I mind putting the information into a newspaper story, get it
published and send it to her office?

I agreed and contacted a local newspaper reporter who, after reading portions of
the material, decided it needed to be reviewed by individuals who had special
knowledge of CIA drug trafficking, arms shipments, and biological
warfare weapons.

After a brief meeting with these individuals, former Special Forces soldiers
from the Vietnam era, they asked for copies of the manuscript, guaranteed an
immediate congressional inquiry, and advised me NOT to place the information on
the Internet as they feared the information could be, in their
words, "taken as just another anti-government conspiracy."

I condensed the manuscript into the attached treatise, covering information
relative to THEIR focus, and sent it to them along with key documents. Shortly
afterward, they re-contacted me and set up elaborate security measures to insure
my safety. As of this writing, I've had no need to institute those measures.

I have in my possession five boxes of documents, obtained from a convicted
methamphetamine chemist whose closest friends were a 20-year CIA
operative and a former FBI Senior-Agent-in-Charge of the Los Angeles and
Washington D.C. bureaus. The labyrinthine involvements of these people and their
corporate partners is revealed in this manuscript, along with information
obtained by Washington D.C. journalist Danny Casolaro prior to
his death in 1991.

A great deal of investigation still needs to be accomplished. I have neither the
financial means nor the ability to obtain "evidence" for "prosecution."
I am simply an investigative writer, placing this information into the public
forum in hopes that someone, somewhere, will grasp the significance of the data
and initiate a full-scale investigation with subsequent subpoena power.

With subpoena power, government agents can testify (some kept anonymous in this
manuscript) who would otherwise lose their jobs and retirement if they came
forward. Witnesses can be protected and/or provided immunity, and financial
transactions of government and underworld figures can be scrutinized.

To date, I have not had more than one hour conversation with anyone associated
with any Congressional investigation, and therefore am extremely limited in my
ability to present the information I have. Much of what I learned during my
five-year investigation cannot at this point be inserted into a manuscript. I
must be assured the information and witnesses will be handled appropriately.

I personally do not believe the Department of Justice will ultimately "prosecute"
this or any other drug trafficking case if it involves government officials. But
I have made the effort to put forth enough information to generate interest and
show good faith. I hope it will be of some value to the American public.

Please keep in mind as you read the attached pages that the complex corporate
structures and technological projects described herein "may" have been
nothing more than an elaborate smoke and mirrors cover for narcotics
trafficking.

This aspect of my investigation was corroborated by several government
investigators, one of whom was a House Judiciary investigator, who spent three
years investigating the Inslaw stolen software case and said in response to my
findings:

"There's some great information here. You did a very good investigative
job, I have to commend you on that. I realize it's only a fraction of everything
you have. What you have done, you have put the pieces of the whole thing
together. Little bits and pieces of things that I have known about, that I
had theorized about, you have found answers to those specific questions."
(See Chapter 13 for entire conversation). That investigator is now in the White
House Office of Drug Control Policy.

To those interested, nearly everything noted in the attached manuscript is
supported by documents or tape recorded interviews. Some are extremely bulky and
not quoted extensively in the manuscript, such as lengthy FBI wire tap
summaries.

I wish to thank Garby Leon, formerly Director of Development at Joel Silver
Productions, Warner Bros. in Burbank, California for tirelessly prompting me to
get a first draft of The Last Circle written in 1994 and helping me with
countless tasks during our joint investigation of the death of Danny Casolaro.

THE LAST CIRCLE

Copyright 1994 - All Rights Reserved

By Carol Marshall

NOTE:

This is a FIRST DRAFT, bare-bones, unpolished manuscript without prose,
characterizations etc.

CHAPTER 1

For the deputies of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department, the
awakening occurred on June 24, 1980, when deputy Ron Van Meter
drowned in an alleged boating accident on Lake McClure. The
search party consisted mainly of three divers, deputies Dave Beavers,
Rod Cusic and Gary Estep. Although adjacent counties offered
additional divers, sheriff Paul Paige refused outside help, even a minisubmarine
offered by Beavers' associate.

In the shallow, placid waters of Lake McClure, Van Meter's body was not recovered that week, and indeed would not be found until
ten years later, in September, 1990 when his torso, wrapped in a fish net and
weighted down by various objects, including a fire extinguisher, washed ashore a
few hundred yards from where Sergeant Roderick Sinclair's houseboat had once
been moored.

Van Meter's widow, Leslie, had been at home baking cookies when
she was notified of her husband's disappearance. She was an Indian girl who had
no affinity with sheriff Paul Paige. The horror began for her that day also. Her
home was ransacked and her husband's briefcase and diary were seized by the
Mariposa Sheriff's department. Only she and a few deputies knew
what Van Meter's diary contained. He'd told his wife he'd taken out a special
life insurance policy two weeks before, but after the search that was missing
also.

Leslie was taken to a psychiatric clinic for evaluation shortly after the
incident.The story surfaced years later, one tiny bubble at a time. The
selfinvolved little community of Mariposa did not cough up its
secrets gladly. On March 23, 1984, Leslie Van Meter filed a
Citizen's Complaint with the Mariposa County Sheriff's department alleging that
the Sheriff's office had been negligent and unprofessional in their
investigation of her husband's disappearance. His body had still not been found,
despite private searches by Sergeant Beavers and other friends of
the missing deputy. She wanted the case reopened.

Paul Paige was no longer sheriff, but newly elected Sheriff Ken Mattheys
responded by reopening the investigation. Investigator Raymond Jenkins, a Merced College Police Chief, and retired FBI agent Tom Walsh from
Merced, were notified by Sheriff Mattheys in October, 1984 that the Van Meter case had been reopened and he wanted their help in cleaning up the
Sheriff's Department.

Their investigation led them straight to the doorstep of MCA Corporation
(Music Corporation of America), parent company to Curry Company, the largest
concessionaire in Yosemite National Park. A major drug network had surfaced in
the park, compelling one park ranger, Paul Berkowitz, to go before the House
Interior Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation to testify about drug
distribution by Curry Company officials.

Ed Hardy, the president of Curry Company, was closely associated with Mariposa
County officials, in particular, Mariposa District Attorney Bruce Eckerson,
County Assessor Steve Dunbar, and Congressman Tony Coelho, whose
district encompassed Mariposa and the Park. The annual camping trips that the
three men took together was encouraged by the local townsfolk because most of
Mariposa's tax base emanated from Curry Company.Coelho and Hardy were regular
fixtures around town, seen at most of the social events. Coelho even cooked and
served spaghetti dinners for the whole town annually at the Mariposa Fair
Grounds, and purchased property in partnership with one member of the Mariposa
Board of Supervisors. In fact, Mariposa was one of the first places he bid
farewell to after resigning from Congress to avoid an investigation of his
finances.

Meanwhile, investigator Raymond Jenkins had
followed the drug trail from Yosemite back to the Mariposa
airport, where sheriff's deputies were seen regularly loading and unloading
packages from planes in the dead of night.

One Indian girl complained bitterly about deputies using the Sara Priest
land allottment (reservation) to grow marijuana and operate methamphetamine
labs. Jenkins, by now retired from the position of Police
Chief of Merced College, was called in to interview the Indian girl. That same
day, as a favor, he provided me with copies of his notes. I followed up with a
tape recorded interview at her home in Bear valley. Her father and uncle
operated a small auto dismantling business on the reservation in Midpines, and
after locating them and gaining their confidence, the uncle drove me out to
Whiskey Flats, the site of the marijuana and methamphetamine lab operations.
That week I rented a horse and rode down into the rocky, isolated valley of
Whiskey Flats. Brush and shrubbery tore at the saddle on the horse and at the
end of the dirt path I encountered three snarling Rottweiler dogs who put the
horse into a frenzied lather.

Nevertheless, I managed to photograph the irrigation system, artesian spring and
pond from which the water was supplied as well as various points of
identification for future reconnaisance. I later returned in a fourwheel drive
pickup truck and managed to view the trailer and lab shack.

The tape recorded interview with the Indian girl, the photos and notes from my
discovery were provided to the Stanislaus County Drug Task Force, but
jurisdictionally, they couldn't enter Mariposa County without
authority of the Mariposa Sheriff's department. It was a catch 22 situation.
Ultimately I provided the same information anonymously to several related
agencies. It was not until 1993 that the fields were eradicated, and 1994,
before the labs were raided. However, no arrests of any deputies were ever
forthcoming.In fact, no arrests occurred at all, except for a few nonEnglish speaking
Mexican nationals who had handled the "cooking."
The head of the Los Angeles Drug Enforcement Agency noted to a local
newspaper that the meth lab was part of a large California drug network, but
they were unable to identify the kingpins.

On July 6, 1985, Mrs. Van Meter filed a "Request for
Official Inquiry" with the State of California Department of Boating and
Waterways stating that no satisfactory investigation was ever conducted into the
matter of her husband's disappearance.

That same month, shortly after a meeting at Lake McClure with
Mrs. Van Meter, Sheriff Mattheys mysteriously resigned from his
position at the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. Mattheys revealed
to reporter Anthony Pirushki that he had been ordered by two county supervisors
and the county's attorney "to stay away from the Van Meter investigation."
But that was not the reason he resigned. The whole story would not surface until
seven years later when a reporter for the Mariposa Guide interviewed him.

However, while still in office, Mattheys and his internal affairs investigators
had learned the reason for Van Meter's disappearance. A few
weeks prior to his death in 1980, Van Meter had driven to the Attorney General's
office in Sacramento and reported drug dealing and other types of
corruption within the Mariposa Sheriff's Department. This,
according to his friends whom he had confided in, deputies Dave Beavers,
a fifteen year veteran of the sheriff's department, and Rod Cusic, a
seventeen year veteran. Both deputies were ultimately forced out of the
department and retired on stress leave.

On that same day, reserve deputy Lucky Jordan had driven to the Fresno office of
the FBI to report similar information. According to Jordan, they had split up
and reported to separate agencies in the event "something" happened to
one of them.The crux of the story was State Attorney General Van De Kamp's
response to the requested investigaion by Ron Van Meter. When
Ron returned home from Sacramento, he was confronted by Sheriff Paige. Paige
had received a call from the Attorney General informing him of the visit and
its contents, and the sheriff was livid about Van Meter's betrayal.Van Meter
had been photographing and journalizing drug activity by deputies at Lake
McClure.
He was part of a California State Abatement Program which involved
harvesting and eradicating marijuana fields in Yosemite National Park and
adjacent counties. Instead, the harvested marijuana was being stored in
abandoned cars and towed out of town by a local wrecker under contract with the
sheriff's department. It was also being distributed at a hidden cove at Lake
McClure.

On June 24, 1980, frustrated and angry at the Attorney General for betraying
him, Van Meter had borrowed a boat and was on his way to arrest
the deputies at Lake McClure himself. He never returned. The
investigation of Van Meter's "accident" was initially handled by
Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, who could not have known on that fateful day that in
exactly three years, three months, and nineteen days, he would enter the
Twilight Zone where his own private hell awaited him.

******

The first substantial hint that a tentacle of the Octopus had slithered into
Mariposa County occurred on March 5, 1983 when a Mariposa County
Sheriff's vehicle scouting Queen Elizabeth II's motorcade route rounded a curve
in the Yosemite National Park foothills, crossed a highway and collided headon
with a Secret Service car, killing three Secret Service agents. CHP (California
Highway Patrol) Assistant Chief Richard Hanna reported that the collision
occurred at 10:50 a.m. between Coulterville and La Grange on Highway 132 about
25 minutes ahead of Queen Elizabeth's motorcade.CHP Sergeant Bob Schilly
reported that Mariposa County Sheriff's Sergeant Roderick Sinclair, 43, was
driving with his partner, Deputy Rod McKean, 51, when "for some reason, [he
didn't] know why," Sinclair crossed the center line and hit the second of
the three Secret Service cars, which went tumbling down a 10foot embankment.

The three Secret Service agents killed in the collision were identified as
George P. LaBarge, 41, Donald Robinson, 38, and Donald A. Bejcek, 29. Sinclair,
who had sustained broken ribs and a fractured knee, was first stabilized at
Fremont Hospital in Mariposa, then transported several days later
to Modesto Memorial Hospital.

Years later, several nurses who had been present when Sinclair was brought into
Fremont Hospital confided that Sinclair had been drugged on the day of "the
Queen's accident" as it became known in Mariposa. For months
Sinclair had been receiving huge daily shots of Demerol, "enough to kill
most men," according to one billing clerk. Some former deputies who had
feared punitive measures if they spoke up, later corroborated the story of the
nurses.

Meanwhile, Assistant U.S. Attorney James White in Fresno ordered Dr. Arthur
Dahlem's files seized to prove Sinclair's drug addiction. Sinclair's Mariposa
doctor and close friend had been prescribing heavy sedatives to him for years.
When White attempted to prosecute Sinclair for criminal negligence, he was
called into chambers during the federal probe and told by U.S. District Court
Judge Robert E. Coyle to "drop the criminal investigation" because
Sinclair's drug problem was not relevant to the prosecution and the drug records
could not be used in court. Judge Coyle's reasoning was that no blood tests had
been taken on Sinclair at the Fremont Hospital on the day of the accident,
therefore no case could be made against him.

In fact, the blood tests HAD been taken, but later disappeared.A significant
piece of information relative to Judge Coyle's background was passed to me
during my investigation of the Queen's accident by retired FBI agent Thomas
Walsh. Allegedly, the Judge was once the attorney of record for Curry Company
(owned by MCA Corporation) in Yosemite National Park. I later learned, in 1992,
that Robert Booth Nichols had strong ties to MCA Corporation through Eugene
Giaquinto, president of MCA Corporation Home Entertainment Division. Giaquinto
had been on the Board of Directors of Nichols' corporation, MIL, Inc. (Meridian
International Logistics, Inc.) and also held 10,000 shares of stock in the
holding corporation. MIL, Inc. was later investigated by the Los Angeles FBI for
allegedly passing classified secrets to overseas affiliates in Japan and
Australia. It is interesting to note, though unrelated, that shortly afterward,
the Japanese purchased MCA Corporation, one of the largest corporate purchases
to take place in American history.

Relative to the Queens accident, in the civil trial that followed the tragic
accident, Judge Coyle ruled that both Sinclair and the deceased Secret Service
agents were at fault. Mariposa County was ordered to pay 70
percent of the claim filed by the widows, and the Secret Service to pay 30
percent. The county's insurance company paid the claim, and ironically, Sinclair
was subsequently promoted to Commander of the Mariposa Sheriff's Department
where he is still employed as of this writing.

In an interview on March 7, 1988, at Yoshino's Restaurant in Fresno, former U.S.
Attorney James White recalled that the original CHP report on the Queens
accident was sent to the State Attorney General's office (Van De Kamp) in
Sacramento. The report was first received by Arnold Overoye, who agreed with
White that Sinclair should be prosecuted. But when the report crossed Van De
Kamp's desk, he told Overoye and his assistant to discard it trash it.

Van De Kamp then appointed Bruce Eckerson, the Mariposa County
District Attorney, to take charge of the investigation and submit a new report.
Coincidentally, Bruce Eckerson's disclosure statements on file at the Mariposa
County Courthouse indicated that he owned stock in MCA Entertainment
Corporation. White added that ALL of the crack M.A.I.T.S. team CHP officers
involved in the original investigation either resigned or were transferred (or
fired) afterward. The CHP Commander and the Deputy Commander who supervised the
M.A.I.T.S. investigation also resigned as did Assistant U.S. Attorney White
himself after the coverup took place.

However, White noted that before he resigned, he quietly filed with Stephan
LaPalm of the U.S. Attorney's office in Sacramento the transcripts of the trial
and an affidavit which listed the "hallucinatory" drugs Sinclair had
used prior to the accident. I privately continued with the Queen's accident
investigation, interviewing deputies Dave Beavers and Rod Cusic
who had been privy to Sinclair's drugged condition on the day of the accident.

Beavers, who was the first deputy to arrive on the scene,
maintained four years later, in 1987, that he was cognizant of Sinclair's
condition, but when he was questioned by James White he was NOT ASKED about the
drugs. (James White had by then been ordered to drop the criminal investigation
and stay away from the drug aspect of the case).

In January 1988, deputy Rod Cusic strode into the offices of the
Mariposa Guide, a competitor newspaper to the Mariposa Gazette,
and stated that he was "told by Rod Sinclair to lie to a Grand Jury"
about Sinclair's drug addiction and the resulting Queen's accident. Cusic added
that he officially disclosed this to the Fresno FBI on April 26, 1984 and again
on October 9, 1987. In 1987, Cusic also noted that he witnessed a boobytrapped
incendiary device explode at Rod Sinclair's home during a visit to his
residence. Additionally, earlier on, Sinclair allegedly barricaded himself
inside his home and boobytrapped the property, as witnessed by numerous deputies
who tried to persuade him to come out.

While reviewing old newspaper clippings from the Mariposa
Gazette, I discovered an odd sidebar to the story. In December, 1984, during the
Queen's accident civil trial in Fresno, U.S. Attorney James White had introduced
testimony that Sinclair's vehicle contained "a myriad of automatic weapons
including a boobytrapped bomb" when the collision occurred on March 5,
1983. It was not until 1991 that I discovered the depth of the coverup.

A CBS television executive and a Secret Service agent who had ridden in the
third car of the Queen's motorcade in 1983, arrived in Mariposa
to enlist my help in putting the pieces of the puzzle together on the Queen's
accident. The Secret Service agent's best friend had been the driver of the car
in which all three agents were killed. I signed a contract with the television
executive for the sale of the story then drove them to the site of the accident,
then to the site of where the damaged vehicle was stored near Lake McClure. The Secret Service agent broke down at the sight of the vehicle,
remembering the gruesome appearance of his dead friend in the front seat. He
turned, tears welling in his eyes, and said, "His heart burst right through
his chest and was laying in his lap when I found him."

Dave Beavers joined us the next day. As did former sheriff Ken
Mattheys. Beavers did not know that the same Secret Service agent whom he was
sitting with in the car was the man who had tried to pull Sinclair out of the
sheriff's vehicle on the day of the accident. There had been a scuffle, Beavers
insisting that Sinclair go to the hospital with "his own people," and
the Secret Service ultimately conceding.The Secret Service agent reflected sadly
that they didn't know to ask the hospital for blood tests on Sinclair that day,
didn't know of his drug addiction. By the time the case went to court, the
records at the hospital were gone.

Two weeks after the agent left Mariposa, I received a packet
containing copies of Sinclair's drug records for three years prior to the
accident. They were the same records that U.S. District Court Judge Robert Coyle
had disallowed in the Queen's accident trial. But it was not until producer Don
Thrasher, a tenyear veteran of ABC News "20/20," came to town, that I
learned of Sinclair's background, or the extent of his addiction.

By chance, at a book signing engagement at B. Dalton Bookstore, I had mentioned
to the manager, Shaula Brent, that my next book contained information about the
Queens accident.Surprised, Shaula blurted out that she had worked at Fremont
Hospital when Sinclair was brought in from the accident. Shaula recounted the
following: Rod Sinclair was brought into Fremont Hospital and placed in a room
with an armed "FBI" agent outside the door. Sinclair had been
receiving huge shots of Demerol in the arm every day prior to the accident, by
order of Dr. Arthur Dahlem. Shaula noted that Sinclair was a big man and the
amount of Demerol he had been receiving would have killed most men. After the
Queen's accident, all drugs were withdrawn from Sinclair, and employees,
including Shaula, could hear him raving aloud for days from his hospital room.
The employees at the hospital were instructed not to speak about or repeat what
took place at the hospital while Sinclair was there.

Because Shaula and her friend, Barbara Locke, who also worked at the hospital,
were suspicious about Sinclair's hospital records, they secretly took photostats
of the records "before they were destroyed by the hospital." Blood HAD
been drawn on Sinclair on the day of the Queen's accident, and he HAD been under
the influence, according to Shaula. Shaula gave the names of six nurses who were
witness to Sinclair's condition at the time he was brought into Fremont
Hospital. When his body was finally drugfree, Sinclair was transported, against
his wishes, to Modesto Hospital.

******

In January, 1992, the final pieces to the puzzle fell into place.
Sinclair's background hadbeen the key all along. Producer Don
Thrasher had interviewed the Secret Service agent and, although the information
he obtained would not be used in his production, he advised me to follow up. The
Secret Service corraborated the following profile: Sinclair's father had
been a military attache to General Douglas MacArthur during World War II. (I
had privately mused how many of MacArthur's men later became arms of the
Octopus). In Japan, after the war, Colonel Sinclair (sr.) supervised the
training of selected Japanese in intelligence gathering operations.

According to the Secret Service, he was an "international figure,"
highly regarded in the intelligence community. Rod Sinclair, Jr. attended
school in Japan during this time. He later reportedly worked in the Army C.I.D.
in a nonmilitary or civilian capacity, allegedly receiving training at Fort
Liggett in San Luis Obispo, a training center for military intelligence
operations.

Could it have been possible for Colonel Sinclair, Sr. to have called upon old
friends in high places to rescue his son, Rod, from the Queen's accident
investigation? Did the Octopus have enough power to alter an investigation of
the death of three Secret Service agents? According to the Secret Service
agent in Los Angeles, it did. And he intended to tell the story after he
retired.